-----Original Message-----
From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of LeoCasey at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 8:00 PM
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
Subject: Re: privatizing schools
Doug writes:
[Leo, is there some subtle victory here that's eluding me? "Before, we had
this kneejerk policy that didn't correspond to reality" - a classic!]
Wall Street Journal - February 20, 2000
For-Profit School Managers Discover Teacher Unions Can Be Unlikely Allies
No victory, subtle or otherwise. Bottom line: as I read the NEA decision, it
is a "strategic retreat." But I am of the "Tell No Lies, Claim No Easy
Victories" school, so I would call a strategic retreat a strategic retreat.
On general principles, no private for profit entity should have access to
public education, school operation funds. Education is a public good, and
public schools should be accountable to the public; public support for
education should not be diverted, in any way, to private hands. [You have to
purchase textbooks from private for profit companies, but this and similar
matters are really ancillary to the main educational function of schools, and
don't impact on the general principle.] Thus, I would argue that there is no
principled reason why public education could not include charter schools,
provided that they were run by not-for-profit entities and that there were
clear mechanisms of accountability to the public. This is not "kneejerk"
policy, in my book.
But public education advocates, with teacher unions being the most prominent
organized presence in this camp, are not now in a strategic position to
ensure that those principles are a matter of law. The question is how do we
arrive at that point. That is a fairly complicated issue, and I could discuss
it at considerable length. A few points may provide some sense of the lay of
the land.
The 'achilles heel' of public education lies in the failure to provide a
quality education to urban and rural schools serving poor and working class
communities and communities of color. A very significant and predominant
reason for this is the underfunding of such schools, but it is not the total
story. Until this disparity is addressed in a convincing way, the threat of
privatization will not completely disappear. This has to be a priority long
term strategic objective of public education advocates and teacher unions.
At a different level, there is a compelling logic to a strategic approach
that focuses less on trying to establish a Maginot line against any private
management of failing schools where the balance of forces indicate that such
an approach is likely to be unsuccessful, and more on ensuring (1) that the
decision to go that route is one that the parents, teachers and local
community have ultimate control over, (2) that basic union and due process
protections remain in place and (3) that there are clear and strict
evaluation protocols and standards in place regarding the progress of the
school. Since for profits have, in general, a rather poor record of actual
progress on the educational front, and since most are very speculative
ventures which will soon fail of their own weight, the ultimate goal of
keeping them from establishing much of a beachhead in public education could
well be better served by this approach. You can see hints of this strategic
orientation between the lines of the WSJ article.
For profits have a real economic problem in that the real money in public
education is in the suburban school districts, but they are now in no
position to break into those districts, so they are left trying to make a go
of it in the low revenue, high cost urban school districts. They are thus
going to face the same challenges that inner city schools do. And since they
have an extraordinary rate of staff turnover in a field where two of three
years of actual experience is required to become proficient, it is very hard
to see how they could accumulate the type of professional expertise they
would need to have much of an impact.
In this regard, it is also important to distinguish between different for
profits. Edison is by far the most politically savvy of the bunch, and has
made a point of both making it clear that they are prepared to work out
ententes with teacher unions, and of making fairly sophisticated approaches
to communities of color -- they have not only Floyd Flake, former Democratic
congressman and African-American preacher on their staff, but also the former
Milwaukee Superintendent of Schools, Howard Fuller, one-time Marxist-Leninist
and pan-Africanist. They have been the most successful in terms of sheer
number of public schools they now manage, and have seen their stock soar
through the roof, although they are very much like an Amazon.com in that it
is unclear that they will ever make a profit. I think that a straight out war
of maneuver may work with other, lesser for profits, but that a war of
position is required to deal with Edison.
The situation in NYC illustrates the complexity of the problem. Levy, the NYC
Chancellor, agreed to turn 5 failing schools into charter schools run by
Edison largely as part of a deal with Guiliani to keep him from pushing for
his more ambitious voucher plan. The state law, however, requires that 50%
plus 1 of all the parents in a public school vote to convert it to a charter
school, and all sorts of machinations have been going on to try to get that
vote. The most offensive of these is the clause in the contract that would
have the Board pay Edison half a million dollars to sell itself to the
parents in these schools. There is a lot of community resistance, led by
groups like ACORN and progressive politicians in the African-American and
Latino community. The UFT has a good relationship with these groups, and
decided that it was best that they take the lead, and the union support them
around issues like having a fair vote which really reflected their sentiment.
This was a sound approach, in my opinion, and has avoided the usual attempts
to make the union the issue. But in at least two of the five schools, parents
are facing a choice between having the school closed down and allowing it to
continue under Edison management. With this gun at their heads, it is hard to
know how they will go.
Leo Casey
United Federation of Teachers
260 Park Avenue South
New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never has, and it never will.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
-- Frederick Douglass --
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